


Fluttering Petals

by daitsukidesu



Series: Baes [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe, Cal makes a small appearance at the end, F/M, Gen, Other, That probably says something in itself, hanahaki disease au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-11
Updated: 2017-11-11
Packaged: 2019-02-01 01:48:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12694545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daitsukidesu/pseuds/daitsukidesu
Summary: Hanahaki Disease. A disease that most considered to be romantic, flowers blossoming in your chest and spilling past your lips as your love for someone grew. Myst has only known of it as deadly. It's already taken one person away from her.Finding out her brother had it, she was scared it would take him away too.





	Fluttering Petals

_Closing our eyes and saying goodbye to yesterday_

_A fluttering, fluttering flower_

_Spit it out and shout_

_Shout your feelings out_

_Isn’t it fine even if it’s not certain?_

**_– LOLV (Lots of Love) ~ Procellarum (Tsukiuta)_ **

                                                           

Hanahaki disease. A rare, genetic disease that has baffled scientists since its discovery. Most people thought of it as romantic – flowers blossoming in your chest, settling its roots deep into your lungs, soft petals spilling out of your mouth with every cough, every thought of your loved one. Artists and writers all over the world made it out to be some sort of heroic act – the greatest act of love. To love so much that you would die for it.

But that wasn’t what it was. It wasn’t beautiful. It was death. Hanahaki disease was a rare, genetic disease brought about by feelings of one sided love. Those inflicted will be burdened by their own love in the form of flowers, a literal plant growing in their lungs, sometimes in their stomachs too. It starts out small at first, with the patient only coughing out petals or maybe buds; more annoying than painful. It was capable of causing death through suffocation, but most would manage to cough out the petals before they did. It was when their feelings grew that the main problems started. As their love grew, so do the flowers. Some were lucky, the flowers curling in their lungs owning smooth stems, others were pained with thorned roses that cut up the insides of their organs. Either way, most ended up coughing and throwing up whole stems and bouquets, leaves and thorns constantly rubbing at their insides until they were raw and bled. Sometimes the plants would grow at such a rate that the flowers would choke them before they had a chance to bleed out. No one knew which was worse.

There were cures of course, not all of which were ideal. The first was to have your love reciprocated, and to accept that you are loved. No one really knew what happened to the flowers when that happened. They just seemed to disappear, the patient no longer coughed them out. Or maybe they were still there, their flowers at full bloom now that their love was fulfilled, and it no longer needed to grow. It was just there, living on in peace, a benign being. Another cure was fall out of love, a natural thing to happen, and when it did the plants will wilt, one would cough out the dead plants, root and all, and that was it. Hanahaki was over for them. They were lucky really, to not have to live with the stigma of the other cure. The other cure was surgery. It was complicated and not all who went through it survived, the doctors do need to cut open organs to remove the flowers. The main problem with this method was that, by removing the flowers, the feelings of love are removed along with it. For some people this meant to only remove their feelings, for some this meant partial loss of memory, most of which had the patient’s love in it, and for others, this meant completely forgetting their love. All their memories remain intact, other than the fact that that one person was erased completely from them.

People called those who underwent the surgery weak, for they were the ones who chose to forget, but everyone inflicted with the disease could only see them as strong. How could you make the decision to have their feelings removed physically just so they could live for the people who actually loved them? If they weren’t strong, how could they have chosen to get rid of a feeling such as love? How could they have come to learn to live when everyone thought them weak? Most people, whether they bear the gene of Hanahaki or not, couldn’t possibly bear to make that choice. Those who did were anything but weak.

Once inflicted with the disease, death was easy. Living was not.

And honestly, one more romanticised depiction of Hanahaki and Myst would be sick.

Beautiful? That was such a disrespectful way to look at it. The flowers were beautiful, but what they symbolised wasn’t. Why did they just see the disease for its flowers? Why did they have to romanticise it and erase all the pain that came with it? They were lucky they couldn’t ever have it. Wouldn’t ever have to sit through the painful sounds of hacking and retching coming from nearby. Wouldn’t have to sit and talk about a problem they knew they couldn’t solve.

Hanahaki disease wasn’t beautiful. It was a serial killer, and she would never understand how people could think it was lovely.

That was what Myst thought when she first found out the reason for her mother’s death. She had been nine when she and her twin asked their father what happened to their mother. Young enough to have not been perceptive at the fact that the topic pained him, but old enough to know the truth. So he told them. Their mother had come from a line of people who had the Hanahaki Disease. She was no different.

“What’s the Hanahaki disease?” Tom, ever so curious, had asked. Their father had smiled sadly when he told them what it was, how those who had it would cough out flowers if they loved someone who didn’t love them back.

“It sounds pretty.” Myst mumbled, “But why did it make mama go away?”

“She choked on the flowers, my dear. She loved so much that the flowers wouldn’t let her live anymore.”

At that moment Myst and Tom both decided that the disease was evil. What beautiful flowery image their young minds supplied about the disease was torn away. It couldn’t be pretty. Not if it made their father look so sad. Not if it took their mother away from them.

It took them a few years to fully understand. Their father loved their mother with all his heart, but she didn’t feel the same. She yearned instead for another and couldn’t bear to let go of him. She had loved him even before their marriage but he had married another. Even knowing this their father accepted her and loved her, and she loved him back. When they asked again, he insisted that she loved him and the family they were building. She loved him and both the twins. Yet she never forgot her first love, and she never got over him. Not even after his death, when a tragedy struck and he died in the streets. Some days, their father said, when she was with all three of them, the flowers were much less – they didn’t appear at all. Those days were the good days, when everyone was happy. The proof that she really did love them. She just had too much heart.

It was what killed her in the end. When she choked and bled to death, puking blood and thorns, petal after petal falling from her mouth. In the end she couldn’t remove the flowers as quickly as they were growing, and she choked on the plant growing within her, dying at the anniversary of her loved one’s death, leaving behind a family who knew they weren’t first in her heart.

“Papa, why didn’t mama get the surgery?”                                                        

“She was too in love. It would have hurt her to forget him.”

“Why didn’t you tell her to get the surgery?”                                     

“That would have been selfish of me, Mystie. We were all happy and that was enough for me.”

Myst didn’t understand how it was her father that was selfish. It was her mother that was selfish for not wanting to let go when she could have. It was the flowers that littered the house when she was alive that was a constant painful reminded for her father. It was her mother’s choice not to cure the disease. But then again… if it didn’t exist, maybe her mother would have forgotten him… the flowers wouldn’t have kept reminding her about him. If Hanahaki didn’t exist, maybe she could have learnt to love their father with all her heart.

In the end it was the disease that had hurt them all. She could never forgive it for being so cruel. She couldn’t understand why it fascinated people so. It was a killer, and nothing more. As the years passed, her opinion never changed.

She only began to hate it more when it started hurting her one more time.

It started small at first, a petal or two carelessly left in the toilet bin. He was careful about hiding it, and she didn’t know about it. She didn’t think she ever would have known if Tom hadn’t come up to her and told her, trying his hardest to keep his composure through it all.

His bravado didn’t last long, and he ended up breaking down and crying. Myst didn’t want to believe his words, but when he pushed her away just to lock himself in the toilet, she couldn’t deny them anymore. Not when she heard his hacking coughs as he tried his best to remove the flowers from his lungs. Tom had Hanahaki and it was starting to reach the point that it could kill him.

When he eventually opened the door, looking down in shame, Myst gave him a smile, pushing him into his room and telling him to rest. He did as she said, too tired to argue. It was only when he was out of sight that Myst let her smile drop, finally looking at the flowers now littering the toilet floor. She held back a small shriek at the sight of the blood mixed flowers. Had it just been buds and a couple of blooms, it would have been impossible for Tom to have bled onto the floor, but what she saw on the ground could have probably been part of at least five different flower arrangements, the carnations were in full bloom, their petals as ominously red as the blood their stems drew from her brother’s organs. Her eyes watered and the time she took to clean the blood and flowers off the floor was spent holding back tears.

“Hey, Tommy,” It had been nearly two weeks since she had found out that Tom had contracted the Hanahaki disease. Those two weeks she had spent in great pain as she observed Tom in his day to day life. It seemed obvious, now that she knew, that all wasn’t well with Tom. She wasn’t sure if it was a good thing or not, but he was a surprisingly good actor, spending most of the day with a natural easy-going smile. The flowers almost didn’t seem to bother him.

(Just almost. She could no longer dismiss the way that he disappeared more often now, and spent longer in the toilets than he would usually prefer, having a great dislike of public toilets.)

It was impossible then, that she missed the way his smile seemed just a bit more forced when he talked to Cam, like there was something scratching at his throat that he wanted to get out. She didn’t miss the small, fond smiles he gave her when he thought she wasn’t looking, followed by a frown as his hand hovered over his throat for a moment before he schooled his features again. The slight pink tint in his cheeks when her arm brushed against his as they walked only gave away his feelings even more. Watching them was painful, not only for the way every bit of Tom seemed to shout out that he loved her, but also in the way that Cam seemed to only accept and return his feelings in kind.

Tom’s feelings weren’t unrequited, he shouldn’t be struggling with the Hanahaki disease.

“Hm?” Tom looked at Myst from his table, where he was doing his homework. The rubbish bin by his table side was filled with petals and blossoms that he had plucked out from his mouth over the past few hours. Myst made a silent note to change out the plastic in the bin for an empty one, this one was beginning to overflow.

Myst’s pencil stopped as she returned her brother’s gaze, the Canelés she had been designing lay forgotten as she spoke, “Why don’t you just confess to Cam?”

The glass of water that he had placed at the edge of his worktable (a place he probably shouldn’t have deemed ‘safe’) broke as it crashed to the ground the moment he turned to stare at his twin in shock. Myst didn’t even blink, putting aside her sketchbook as she went to pick up the glass, no longer meeting his eyes.

“I- why- how!?”

“Once I was actually looking, it was really easy to see.” There was a moment of silence before she added, “I think it’ll work out.”

_‘Please don’t kill yourself believing that it won’t.’_

Tom didn’t answer, and Myst didn’t say anymore. She left his room with a plastic bag full of flowers and a newfound determination to make sure her twin didn’t die.

If she can’t get through to Tom, then there was always Cam.

“Cammie~” Myst sang on their way home from school. It had taken her another week to get Cam alone. Tom was stubborn and had kept coming to school despite his sickness having progressed even more and she never managed to get a moment with Cam long enough to talk to her about her and Myst’s brother’s very obvious feelings.

The only reason Myst had managed to force him to stay home today was because he felt bad for having made her freak out as much as she did. He couldn’t blame her, she had gone into his room after having hear a thud, and when Myst found Tom sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall with his face contorted in pain, flowers peeking through the blood covered fingers he had pressed against his mouth. She had panicked, barely managing to get a plastic bag to Tom before he started to throw up, forgetting to press her hand against his shoulder or back as she normally did. Tom had tied up the plastic bag immediately after he had forced out most of the flowers. The stems were much longer now than they had ever been, a single one carrying at least four carnations, all of the ones he had thrown up brought with them more blood than ever before and Myst knew that he didn’t want her to see what the end result had been. He didn’t want her to know how much the plants had had torn him up inside, shredding at the already delicate linings of his throat. Once she had calmed down, Myst had basically pushed him back into bed, hands shaking as she placed a few rubbish bags by his side and making sure he had plenty of water to drink before threatening him with certain death if he came to school anyway. He would have went, she knew, if it wasn’t for the tremble in her lips as she smiled and waved goodbye. At the end of the day, it was only his guilt that still kept him on his bed.

(The threat was unnecessary. He would die anyway if he didn’t settle his feelings soon.)

“Hm?” Cam hummed, Myst had to hold back a small laugh at how she answered her in practically the same way Tom did.

Myst smiled, knowing that this was probably her only chance to make sure at least one of them would speak out about their feelings for each other. Probably her last chance of saving Tom without making him take the surgery and hurting Cam too in the process.

“When are you going to tell Tommy you like him~?”

Cam stopped, fixing her gaze at Myst, eyes wide in shock and mouth slightly agape.

“What??”

“Cammie, it’s obvious.” Myst giggled, “You two are practically carrying around flashing signals saying that you love each other. Everyone else already knows.”

“I- that- wait…” Cam trailed off, eyes somehow widening even more as she registered Myst’s words, “He… likes me?”

“Oh my G-”

“Myst-”

“You know what, we’re almost at my house, you two are talking this out.”

“Myst, no!”

“Myst, yes.”

The sound Cam made sounded akin to a cat being strangled and Myst almost giggled more when she saw a very familiar figure throwing out a couple of garbage bags, tied up neatly but very obviously full. She almost stopped walking, almost stopped pretending that everything was normal as Cam waved happily at Tom. Fear wrapped its cold fingers around her heart as she wondered just how much Tom had thrown up today, how much longer he had to live.

She took a breath, forcing out a cheeky smile as she gently pushed Cam towards Tom, “Talk.”

Cam couldn’t hold back the blush that spread across her pale cheeks and Tom looked at Myst in panic. She grinned at them both as she pushed them both inside the house, “Go on now.”

_‘I don’t want to lose you both too.’_

“Red carnations, huh?”

Myst blinked at the voice, turning around to see her neighbour looking at some of the flowers that had spilled out of the bags Tom had just thrown out. She tilted her head, for the first time wondering if she wasn’t the only one who was kept up by the sound of her brother coughing out flowers into the toilet bowl.

“They mean _‘I yearn for you.’_ Quite sad, actually…”

In the context they were talking about, there was nothing sadder, so Myst nodded, taking a few steps closer towards him.

“Do you reckon they’ll be fine?”

Callisto smiled kindly, hand reaching out to gently pat her head, “I’m sure they will.”

Myst smiled back, lips trembling once more as she looked down, trying not to think of the what ifs.

“It must have been hard on you.”

Myst screwed her eyes shut, trying her hardest to hold back the tears she had been suppressing ever since she that day she found out that her mother had passed on to her brother the disease that killed her. She didn’t find it in herself to be surprised when she felt an arm wrap around her pulling her close in a comforting hug, the gesture one that finally caused her to break. For the first time since she saw the red carnations on the bathroom floor, Myst cried, sobbing as she pressed her face into Callisto’s chest in a useless attempt to muffle her cries, fingers clutching at the fabric of his shirt gripping tightly enough that she could still feel her nails digging into her palms despite the shirt’s thick material.  For the first time in years, she cried without restraint.

She apologised when she was done, eyes red and puffy as Callisto smiled kindly and patted her head one more time, “It’ll be fine, alright? He’ll be fine now.”

Myst smiled, her lips curving up voluntarily after an eternity of forced grins.

“Thanks, Cal.”

He gave her a grin, waving goodbye as he headed back to his house. Myst smiled, waving back.

(The garbage he came out with had been long taken care of – it was only the girl that had smiled brightly at him when he moved in a few years back that had kept him out longer than he intended to.)

Myst frowned when she felt something itch at the back of her throat, when she coughed, she felt something soft on her tongue. She knew what it was even before she plucked the flower out of her mouth. After the events of the past few weeks, she couldn’t find it in herself to even be horrified at the thought of having been born with the same disease that took her mother. The same one that nearly took her brother.

She wondered if her emergency savings would have enough to pay for the surgery. If it wasn’t then she hoped that by the time she got her next pay check, the flowers wouldn’t already be covered in blood. If living meant that she won’t find love then so be it. Her family needed her.

A lone white carnation in full bloom lay in the bin where it had been thrown.

(In the comfort of his room, Callisto coughed out a few flowers, taking out the single velvet petal stuck too far back in his mouth for him to cough out properly and letting it rest in the bin where the other white roses lay. He wondered if the surgery was worth it, wondered if it would hurt to forget the bright smile that had been a constant in his life since the day he first came to this town.

Knowing that she would worry for him if she knew, he smiled, picking up the flowers from the otherwise empty bin and flushing them down the toilet.

He wondered if there would come a day when she put her own feelings before everyone else’s.)

**Author's Note:**

> Flower meanings:  
> Red carnations - Like Cal said it means, "I yearn for you", and "Alas, my poor heart".  
> White carnations - "Pure love", and "Good luck".  
> White rose - Purity and a spiritual love.
> 
> In the case of Tom and Cam, their love ran its course quite well, and over the next few days, the flowers receded and he coughed out the final few flowers over the next few days. Like previously said, no one knew what happened to the plant already growing in him. He didn't quite care. His love was reciprocated and he didn't need to resort to forgetting his dear friend. He was content.
> 
> In the case of Myst, she had the operation done as quickly as she could afford to. Since she nipped the problem in the bud, her interactions with Cal didn't have much change. Cal could feel that something was off, but he didn't know what it was. She was still friendly and she smiled in the same way that made his heart skip a beat. He did know that he shouldn't die over something as fickle as love, and collected money to get the operation done.
> 
> In the case of Cal, he had the operation done much later and it carried a lot more risk. His interactions with Myst were significantly changed. It was at that point that both him and Myst realised that their feelings were indeed reciprocated. They still stubbornly remained friends throughout the course of their life. And if one day during the course of their many years of friendship, the flowers bloomed again, well, it was their choice whether or not they would act on it this time.
> 
> (For more on these baes there's always our tumblr mystic-snowfall.tumblr.com <3)


End file.
